Because of this non-ending blame game to N.C.R. I decided to travel in a freight in CNB-ALD-MGS and reverse. The things which I noticed in different sections are :-
In ALD-GMC. ( Day Time )
Goods trains are running on maximum speed of 70-75 km/hr in this stretch. The freight in which I traveled was booked for just 60 km/hr. And to my surprise the train went non-stop from ALD-GMC. NCR didn't allowed a single overtake. On asking to the LP he told that overtaking a freight means loose of more than an...
more... hour because if a freight is looped then the nearest train running behind freight has to slow down and train running behind are also affected and if the freight is looped then Controllers have to pass the trains that are 70 kms behind the freight at the time of the first overtake. This point is justified. I.R. is earning a-lot from freights. The aggressive Time Table of trains in this section and slow movement of freight trains makes the delay increasing after each passing station. At the max. speed of 60 km/hr with many slow downs due to speed restrictions and pass by loops and yellow signals due to trains running ahead, the freight covered ALD-GMC in 7 hours 35 minutes.
( In Winter due to Fog trains are affected badly is well-known to everyone )
.
GMC-ALD-MGS ( Night-Day)
This time the scenario was totally opposite of what I have experienced. We were looped at various stations for the overtake of Rajdhani. Due to Rajdhani many other SF trains which were running behind Rajdhani overtook us. A full 135 minutes wait at Rooma and Fog LPs restricted his speed to 60 km/hr as per the norms of I.R. Then at every station 2 or 3 minutes halt at main line due to signal clearance. And at Manauri we were looped for 160 minutes for the overtake by Prayagraj, Rewa, Swatantrata Senani, Shiv Ganga and few more trains. And finally reached Allahabad Junction at 10:10 and departed Allahabad Junction at 10:40. And then it was Bermuda Triangle. Fog and visibility problem. We crawled through Naini and then the visibility was fair and the freight accelerated to 70 km/hr. This was the booked speed of the freight. Again we were looped for Brahmaputra Mail. Brahmaputra Mail was allowed to overtake us because it was the only train which had to cover a long distance. And then no overtake of freight but too many unscheduled halt due to non-clearance. Halted at many stations for 2 minutes or 5 minutes but not more than that. And then we were at Mughalsarai at 15:20.
.
MGS-ALD ( Night )
This time I was in King of Locos WAG-9 of TKD Shed. The hulk what a loco it is. Powerful and beautiful a true beast. At 23:50 we were given proceed ahead signal and at Ahraura we were looped. We reached Ahraura at 00:30. A bunch of overtakes were waiting for us. Then we departed at 03:00 after a long, this is what is really a long number of overtakes bunch of Rajdhanis and other high priority trains and many Super-fast trains. After 03 we roared at 75 km/hr which was the booked speed and then at Birohe we were again looped. We reached Birohe at 06:30. A concor train followed by 2 Mail trains overtook us. At 07:00 departed Birohe. Due to many slow downs either by pass by through loop or because of the caution we reached Manda Rd. at 09:00 and were stranded here for 1 hours for the overtakes by some late running trains. At 10:00 departed Manda Rd. at 10:25 arrived Meja Rd. we were overtaken by Kalka and North East and then a slow but uninterrupted run till Naini. We reached Naini at 11:15 halted for few seconds overtook Pawan Express or SC-PNBE SF ( can't remember exactly ) and reached Allahabad at 11:40. On asking the LP about the overtakes he told that for giving way to Rajdhani trains are looped this brings up the opportunity to the trains running close behind Rajdhani. And then in morning time many people board Kalka and North-East for officials work so it's important to give pass to those trains.
.
I didn't find this worst controlling as people term it actually it's a well-planned controlling, handling a large number of traffic with only 2 line is not easy, even the LPs were not having any issue with current controlling.
